


Coccoon

by orphan_account



Series: Transformations [2]
Category: Dragon Age 2
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:13:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the sequel to Metamorphosis.</p><p>Post-game, the party discovers what Hawke did in his grief to keep Fenris at his side. Can they undo the damage and protect Hawke from himself? Do they even want to help him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As previously suggested I'm really bad at leaving things unresolved, for all that I preach not Giving Away Everything.
> 
> Other notes: I think Merrill is super awesome and it will show here. Also, the number of chapters is not technically accurate; just higher than the number currently uploaded so it's clear that the story's not finished yet.

Under Hawke's control, life is very simple. There are subtle pressures (like a fist, tightly clutching his brain all the time, more pressure in one place until he turns the right direction and then it eases up, then gentle feelings of praise and reward because it feels good to obey and he is obedient because it feels good), there are gestures of Hawke's hand, there are elaborate shows that are Hawke, ever a romantic (though he tries to joke and pretend it is not so), uses to live out his fantasies of a reality in which he and Fenris came together of their own free will.

Deep, deep inside that part of himself, Fenris is ashen, broken, sick, and lonely. Prisoner of his own mind: forever. The humiliation of what Hawke did-- has done-- is doing-- will do-- to him steals more and more of him every day. Their passionate kiss in the courtyard, as he stands beside Hawke in one dramatic demonstration of Hawke's incredible power over Fenris's heart. To the others, watching, it was a moving show of how strongly Fenris felt for Hawke, that he denied his own beliefs to fight by the other man's side. To Fenris, it was like being fucked by the Qunari: Hawke making a brutal point that also had its sensual sides.

They flee the city, they go into hiding.

Squeeze, and release. Like swinging an axe. Like breathing. Fucking.

Fenris follows Hawke's lead.

***

They have fought off marauders before, but never three ships at once while being boarded by two of them. Magic is a great ally, but it can only do so much: Anders struggles to keep his footing in the rigging as he leans down, arm outstretched, trying to cast a glyph of paralysis on the men surrounding Hawke.

This moment does not seem unusual, seem special to him. Hawke has been surrounded hundreds of times before.

This time, the men overwhelm Hawke. They slice his throat and drop him, bleeding, to the deck.

Anders is not the only one who chokes, not the only one who makes a sound of pain. But from his unique vantage, the most interesting thing is Fenris, whose body jerks like a wire was snapped and then collapses, bonelessly, to the ground.

That is odd. That will be important later.

First, he has to help them win the battle.

Isabela has single-handedly subdued the third of the three ships and now is leaping over to the second; Varric rains arrows mercilessly on them as well, suppressing their attempts to get to Merrill, who is throwing bolts of earth onto the ship with such speed that it's begun to sink under all the extra weight left behind.

He misses Aveline, who is back in Kirkwall, keeping order, but at least there is hope. The third boat's men try to fight off Isabela, seeming to think Fenris is also subdued. Maybe they're right; sickeningly sweet as it might be, maybe he loves Hawke so much he can't stand the sight of the man bleeding out.

Hawke will be fine, of course, once Anders gets to him. Something is nagging his mind about Fenris, though. Why collapse? Shouldn't he have gone into a berserk fury?

And then Anders makes it to their side (he has learned to suppress the twinge of sorrow he feels at how closely they fight together), and checks Hawke's pulse. It is still strong, though it is quickly growing weaker; he has plenty of time.

When he glances at Fenris, he sees that the elf's eyes are open. They are glassy and unfocused, clouded with something Anders can't name. Still, he sees and understands. He begs, in a voice rough with abuse and soft and promising of sex, "Bring Hawke back."

Anders raises an eyebrow, thinking the elf must be delirious. He is more than a little uncomfortable at the raw need of the other man's voice. It's-- it's odd. "I'm working on it."

Relief then, and Fenris's voice goes distant and childlike, terriyingly honest: "Good. Thinking...hurts, now."

Every second counts and probably Fenris just has a concussion, but when he's finished his healing spells, he can't shake his unease. No matter how he looks between Hawke and Fenris (Fenris who is back to normal, as if it never happened) as they finish the fight and go about their business afterward, he can't shake the feeling that he is missing something important, something he can suspect very easily but dreads to know.

So, he goes to Merrill.

Even though, of course, Merrill is nested at the pinnacle of the mast, with the crows, and Anders doesn't exactly have a fear of heights or anything but the rocking and pitching of the ship (which he will never _really_ get over) makes it seem terribly dangerous. By the time he reaches her, he has had many opportunities to reconsider his concern, he has thought it through and almost turned back because he doesn't like her, doesn't have to like her, and he doesn't like Fenris, and--

And then he remembers that glassy, empty look in Fenris's eyes and his stomach turns. He has seen that look in the Tranquil, and in the faces of those tortured almost to death. He has seen it, though it chills him, curdles his blood, in the faces of dying darkspawn-- thankful faces, weeping faces.

No matter what he is, Anders is a healer first. He _can not_ ignore what he saw.

So he crests the tiny wooden wall and all but falls into the crow's nest beside Merrill, gasping for air and shuddering at the numerous grisly fates he had envisioned for himself should he have happened to fall before he made it.

Merrill jumps, looking down at him with wide, startled eyes.

" _Lethallin_ , what are you doing here?"

Eyes that do not judge, with a smile that says she believes in second chances. He doesn't feel worthy of such friendliness, not after what he did and not after how cruelly he has treated her. He rights himself and smiles abashedly, realizing that he never comes up to visit Merrill, never went out to visit her in Kirkwall. An injustice he will have to work to rectify, starting now.

"H-hello, Merrill," he says, awkwardly, trying to sit up with his back to one of the too-short wooden walls. "I- I need to talk to you about something."

She drops down into a comfortable sitting pose, legs crossed, so rapidly that it makes him flinch. "Of course! What can I do for you?" Seeing his expression, she looks apologetic and pats his feathered shoulder. "Are you scared of heights? You could have asked me to come down, you know."

"No," he shakes his head, closing his eyes to center himself, "No, I need to talk to you about this up here. Someplace where we can't be overheard."

"Oh? Oh! Is it a _secret?_ " She grins wildly, misunderstanding his solemnity for sarcasm. Is it any wonder? They're a band of misfits whose favorite flavor of humor is deadpan. Himself included.

"Yes." He dares to open his eyes, and leans forward urgently. "I want to- it's about something that might be blood magic."

Strange, how all the happiness drains out of her. He can see how the years of insensitive bullying make her face close, her shoulders hunch. She is preparing, he realizes with a guilty start, for him to scold her for something. "Oh, um. D-did I do something?"

"No- no," he rubs the bridge of his nose, trying to stifle his anxiety. "No, certainly not. I was wondering, if- if someone else was using blood magic, would you be able to tell? I know that you can see if someone is possessed, the same way I can." He's still not certain if he dares tell her that it's Hawke he suspects, though they are the only three mages on the ship. He doesn't dare bring his suspicions before the man; the raw power Hawke wields was terrifying from the day they met, and it has only grown, kindled by righteous anger and determination into a strength greater than that of any other mage Anders knows.

She laughs. "Of course not! Only if they were trying to use it on me. And--" Her cheer fades into confusion at a half memory. "And not always. Do you remember that girl, the one who'd entranced that nice Templar boy?"

"Keran?"

"Yes, that was him. I-- I was with Hawke at the Blooming Rose that day. Varric, and Aveline and me." Her expression has turned inward. The memory seems unpleasant, or at least confusing; eventually, she shakes her head. "She used bloodmagic on us all. Only Hawke was able to resist it, and just barely. I didn't even _know_ what was happening until it was over."

When she looks this sober, there is a strange feeling to Merrill. It's almost as if she is an old woman, with wisdom and too many years lining her face instead of her dalish tattoos. She glances up, breaking her own somber mood with a forced, quick smile.

"So, no. I wouldn't know. But I'm sure whatever you did wasn't actually all that bad. Did you cast while you'd been cut? I know that seems like it must be bloodmagic, but if you don't bend it to your will, blood's only blood. I know you, Anders. You'd never give up your healing for that!"

He's not sure if it's his great good fortune that she has misunderstood his reasons for asking, or incredibly dangerous not to tell her. Still, he would rather talk to Hawke than speak of it behind his back. If there were some reason to turn to blood magic, Hawke might well be able to explain it to him-- a necessary evil that would be stopped as soon as Hawke's greater purpose was accomplished.

Justice, who has slumbered since the Chantry, since the battle in the Gallows, stirs uneasily. There is nothing just about bloodmagic. No matter the gain. No matter the reason.

He has a sinking feeling no reason would excuse the look in Fenris's eyes.

"Anders?"

"Sorry." He tries to dredge up some excuse for asking, but none is better than the one Merrill has supplied. "That's-- that's a relief. I probably sound like a scared child, coming up here to you over something so minor."

Only Merrill could laugh away the years, shrug off the stress, and look _happy_ to hear what is the closest Anders will ever come to an apology for misjudging her. "The climb makes everyone a bit nauseous. Sometimes even I have a hard time wanting to come back down! Don't worry; it's not minor, and I'm glad you asked me. Thank you."

He manages a crooked smile in answer, secretly wishing she had not mentioned the climb down. He isn't looking forward to it, but after she's mentioned it he can think of nothing else to say. Excusing himself with an awkward promise to invite her down (if she doesn't mind) to chat some other time about less silly things, he climbs up out of the crow's nest and back down, slowly, hand over hand. By the time he makes it down, he's sure he doesn't want to confront Hawke about his concerns. If he does, there will probably be trouble.

Nothing is as unnerving as the knock on his tiny cabin's door that night. He goes to answer it, envisioning any number of scenarios that would not end well for him, but it's only Varric with dinner and an invitation to eat out on deck with him.

"Are you mad?" The very idea makes him shiver with the cold. "There's a storm blowing in! It'll probably rain on us!"

"Therein lies the adventure, Blondie!" Varric grins, charming as only Varric can be, and offers Anders the plate of whatever-it-is that the dwarf scrounged up for him from the mess hall. "Come on. Just sit and chat. If it rains, I promise, we can all scurry inside."

"All?"

"Of course! Rivaini's going to be there too. _If_ you're interested in a game of cards." With a sly smile, Varric steps back, gesturing with the plates to lure Anders out of doors. "Come on, you know you want to."

Oddly, he kind of does. There's a pleasant normalcy to be found just sitting around laughing and talking, and he has come to appreciate it much more in recent years. With a sigh, Anders yields and steps outside. There will be time enough to agonize over what to do, how to approach Hawke about Fenris in the coming weeks. Maybe when they've put in to a port somewhere, and there is someplace to run and hide if things turn out badly.

He manages to put the whole thing from his mind by the time it actually does start raining, the chill sea winds ripping through his Absolutely Not Warm Enough For This robes. They scatter, laughing, swearing to see each other in the morning, and he returns to his (thankfully) dry cabin, magelight in hand as he closes the door behind himself.

Then lyrium-scored fingers are in his throat, incapacitating and silencing him, and Fenris's stoic face is his entire field of vision. He wants to laugh at his own mistake, in thinking Hawke wouldn't have noticed, wouldn't have suspected.

He passes out thinking only _I should have known_.


	2. Chapter 2

Something is dripping in his face, light drops, cold. He sneezes, jerking awake, and blinks until he realizes it's not that his eyes are unfocused, it's that it's completely dark in his cabin. Dark, save Fenris's softly glowing tattoos.

Over him, Hawke's silhouette flicks one more droplet of water at his face. Hawke's warm hands follow, cupping Anders's chin, pulling his head back to expose his throat. He doesn't know what's happening, really, except that his hands are bound to the floor, and Fenris has something like a dagger or a paintbrush in his hand, Fenris is sitting on Ander's stomach poised to use whatever-it-is.

No words, between Hawke and Fenris. The soft tickle of horsehairs on his throat make Anders shiver, as Fenris paints a mark with unerring precision, long and sinuous, from Ander's chin down to his collarbone. In the wake of the brush, he can feel his skin crawling, then itching, then burning; and Justice howls in him, but they have done something while he was asleep and Justice cannot get out. He feels the energy pulse in his teeth, ringing in his ears, but it only ricochets off of him, sliding back down, leaving him breathless and in terrible pain.

"Good," Hawke's voice says, in a tone that Anders has never heard him use. Frighteningly calm, and just a little bit-- sad. Varric had described it once, that tone of Hawke's voice, after Leandra Hawke had disappeared. The exact words used had been _disturbing_ and _fragile_. Anders thinks, with no small amount of panic, that Varric had definitely been spot on. "Fenris, I'm going to focus on Anders now. You can sit somewhere."

He gets to watch, horrified, as Fenris goes limp again. Feels Fenris fall down against him, feels the elf's shaky breath as he pushes himself back up and lingers over Anders, head down, trying to remember how to do anything at all. It is beyond him; Fenris lingers too long, and then starts shivering with something like fear.

"I can't," breathes the elf, and his voice is that same low whisper of sex and submission from before, "I am yours." It's so close to Ander's ear that he feels himself flush red, embarrassed, horrified.

"I know." Hawke's hands release Anders's chin, stroking Fenris's hair, catching his chin and lifting it up. Anders can hear the regret in Hawke's voice, the attempt at comfort. "I know. I'll move you first. I'm sorry, Fenris, that was forgetful of me."

Then Fenris stands up and moves away, sitting down in a corner before he goes limp again. The illumination of his tattoos shines against his doll-like eyes. He breathes, but only barely.

Anders can't move.

"You're awfully quiet." There are Hawke's hands again, lightly stroking Anders's face. Justice still fights to surface and, when he fails, rails against Ander's body so violently that it makes his stomach hurt, his head throb. "Are you upset, Anders?"

It is a tremendous effort just to speak instead of gurgling helplessly. "Why are you doing this?"

Hawke crooks a finger, and Anders feels his body completely freeze.

He sits up, opens his robes to the chest, and steps out of them. He kneels down before Hawke, head down, and feels Hawke's too-cold fingers stroking his back, his chest, the soft trail of light hair from below his navel down to his dick. Justice beats against the wall of his mind until he is blacking out even as his body continues to sit still, patiently enduring Hawke's caresses. Everything goes blank when Justice slams into those bindings, blank and strangely numb. He wonders if this was Hawke's plan, to drive Justice into destroying Anders for him; not that he's being destroyed, but his will to resist is weaker with every blow. It hurts; it's exhausting.

The sensation of Hawke's warm fingers on his thigh is incredible. It makes his breath catch, makes his stomach twist and his dick tingle with anticipation. He hates himself for that.

"I know what I'm doing," Hawke promises, pressing a kiss to the small of Anders's back. "I know what I'm doing. I'll take good care of both of you."

Anders thinks _no, I can't let you do this_ but it's like a butterfly fighting a tree.

"I'm sorry, Anders." Now those soft lips are pressed to Ander's throat, and he is clutching Anders close to him. "It's-- it's better this way."

Almost, he's surprised when he feels Fenris's fingers on him. Some part of him, delusional, still thought that Fenris might yet snap out of his delirium and knock Hawke out. This is a man who has always fought for freedom. Anders might have hated his stubbornness but he respected their similarities, their desire for a world where slavery did not exist and could not control a person's life.

"What--" he chokes on the words; fighting to say them has cost him what little he had left in his heart for rebelling. "What are you-- going to do to me?"

"I learned a better way," Hawke promises, and Anders can feel _something_ twisting around in his head, pinching and pushing and altering. "A spell to help you adjust."

He tries to say _You should let us go. You need to let us go._ but his mind is a blossom of fire and he smells the stale milk he left out for Ser-Pounce-a-Lot and the cabin flares red. What comes out is, "You're right. That's the best way."

Hawke smiles, that shy, heartbreaking smile Anders has loved for years, and his head feels fuzzy. He crawls forward, undoing Hawke's pants while Fenris crawls under _him_ , applying his mouth to the growing erection Anders can't deny. Fenris sucks him in, and his body sucks Hawke in. He tries to pull back (gagging, Hawke is too big) but his mind twinges again with music that tastes like _red_ , and he is actually sucking harder, eagerly accepting all of Hawke while Fenris gently runs his tongue beneath Anders's foreskin, making his hips jump in surprise and incredible pleasure.

"I- I know it's not quite what you had in mind," Hawke whispers, curling his fingers into Anders's hair and guiding him as if it were all Anders's idea, to do this. "But I know you loved me, once. This-- this is the best I can do."

Anders would say _this is wrong, and you should let us go_ but his mind turns over red and perfume cat-- Chantry? and he pulls back, nursing the head of Hawke's dick and whispering, "I still love you."


	3. Chapter 3

There came a day when Fen'harel at last regretted his mistake. The Dread Wolf is a wise and crafty beast; he knew he could run tirelessly when others would falter, could follow the scent of trouble to make it his own, and he was the quickest and cleverest of all those around him, for he was friend to all. But in tricking the spirits and the old gods into their hiding places, away up above and below and in and around the land, he had made himself alone.

Even the Dread Wolf does not want to wander alone _forever_.

As Fen'harel walked the lands, the seasons turned under his paws, now Spring, now Summer, and in the long yellow grasses and the hot summer sun, he had no one to chase or hunt, no one even to talk to. He could not take back what he had done: he did not wish to let the spirits out again, for doing so would mean he had made a mistake. So instead, he cut away his shadow.

"Shadow," said Fen'harel, bringing it close. "Will you follow me everywhere? I am lonely and you have ever been my companion."

But the shadow said, "I would have followed you forever, my friend, until you cut me. Now I can't stay." For as anyone knows, a severed Shadow fades away into the night and becomes the mist of the world. The Dread Wolf howled and ran and searched for his shadow everywhere. The seasons turned, and turned, but the shadow did not return.

He hunts for it still; for no creature is an island, and the seas that separate us are loneliness, and misery; and they are almost always of our own making.

***

A knock comes at Anders's door, and he stands to open it. Little decisions like this are still left to him, but he can feel Hawke's subtle thread of magic penetrating his mind, watching to see who it is, why Anders is being visited. That sensation alone is like a constant tongue along the underside of his--

"Merrill?" He blinks, surprised to see her. Panic flashes through his mind; Hawke doesn't know about their conversation from before-- he hasn't asked. If Merrill mentions it now, though, he will find out and Anders doesn't want to know what he might do to her. With some difficulty he is able to summon a smile as he steps back, inviting her in. "Ah-- good to, ah, see you again."

As she steps lightly inside the cabin, he notices that she is still barefoot. He is tempted to ask about splinters. The crow's nest is glorious and high on the world. Below it the ocean spreads out in all directions, sparkling with sunlight and shifting and changing, beautiful in its own way. Here in his cabin he feels self-conscious; it is like he brought a piece of Darktown with him, these drab walls and this messy bed and the slightly stale smell of clothes that have been washed with poorly filtered salt-water.

Her smile doesn't falter as she presses her face against the wood of one of the walls, sighing happily. "I thought it might be nice for you if you didn't have to climb up to see me again." Merrill turns her back to the wall, leaning on it and looking expectantly at him. "I hope you don't mind me coming down."

"Oh, no. Actually-- I'm glad you did. It's nice to have company." His lopsided smile is weak. He wishes he could not feel Hawke in his mind, waiting, watching. Merrill is in so much danger in this moment. His heart feels like it's in his throat. "D'you want me to make tea, or-- or something? I could do that."

"You have tea leaves?" she breathes, looking absolutely amazed. "Really?"

"Well-- sort of. I have medicinal teas." He chuckles, sitting down on the edge of his bed. Almost, he wishes he had a chair that he could offer to her, but the cabin is simply not big enough.

Merrill laughs too, but when it fades, her brow is furrowed. She has a distant expression, and runs the thumb of her left hand over the palm of her right thoughtfully, in slow circles. "You know, after your question yesterday, I-- thought about it a bit more," she begins cautiously. "But I got the impression you didn't ask me because of yourself, the more I thought about it."

He swallows hard, reeling with panic and the uncomfortable arousal of having Hawke _always in him, always watching in his mind_ , and bites his lip, trying to think quickly. "A-ah, that-- yes. It was about-- someone else. But you were right in the end." A weak smile, and he desperately wants her to know but at the same time is horrified to think what Hawke might do if pushed. Grief has not sat well with him.

"I was?" She brightens, but her eyes still have a suspicion to them. "Well, I'm glad. You seemed a bit anxious and I didn't want you to be anxious on _my_ account, you know."

Awkward silence grows, but only for a second. She changes the subject.

"Well, if that's the case then why is it you've been moping about in here all day?"

He reflexively wants to tell her the truth: that Hawke is keeping him in here to make certain the changes take, that the spell holds. Hawke told him to expect a night visit and to enjoy the time if he could, promised to tell the others that Anders had been feeling sick. When he opens his mouth to speak, that same crushing feeling clamps down hard on his will, a little like being hit with his own electric-finger trick, and _wild cows?_ make the tree over in- in- in-

"I'm-- not-- feeling very well," he chokes, feeling his forehead start aching. He tries to smile, but it doesn't work very well. He's losing feeling in his toes until the pressure eases up, and it's been such an exhausting process and Hawke isn't letting him sleep and Justice is still, feebly, beating on the walls within him it would be nice just to lie on the ground and think of nothing for a while--

"You should be resting!" Merrill is saying, but her eyes are wide with alarm. Does she know? Does she know? Please, Maker, let it be that she knows! She asks, perhaps a bit _too_ intentionally, "Did Hawke come by yet to have a look at you and help out?"

The answer, of course, is that Hawke doesn't need to do so because this is Hawke's doing. He tries to answer, but no: There it is again, that painful jerk that undoes his thoughts and certain key functions of his body. His fingers spasm involuntarily, only on the left hand. "N-no, I didn't want to bother him with it. I'm sure it'll pass," he says with an easy smile that is not his own doing. He can see Merrill's fingers twitching with the longing to help him, see that she knows and dares to hope that she might tell the others, that they might be able to stop Hawke.

"Want me to have a look, then?" she asks, sounding only a little bit too helpful. Hawke is watching and Hawke is listening but Hawke doesn't seem to have noticed her suspicions. Small blessings. Small blessings.

"Yes," he gasps, scooting over in the bed, "Yes, if you don't mind, that would be welcome."

Merrill sits down, and makes him lean back against the wall. "I know a small bit of these magics," she warns, placing one hand on his chest and the other along the back of his neck, closing her eyes and _listening._ "I can't promise much, but I still want to try."

Hawke's touch, magically, is like a strand of molten gold. It radiates such an intense power that to feel it in his mind is uncomfortably similar to having his head split open from the sheer force of it. Merrill's, by contrast, is a gentle vine, entirely self-contained, gentle, green. She casts into his mind, slowly, slowly, righting things he hadn't known were still left wrong from all the painful cues that Hawke's spells have been giving him. She crawls through the maze of his mind as cautiously as Isabela approaches a tomb she knows is trapped, and when the two strands of power in his mind meet, she does not confront Hawke directly--

\--she dives down into the very depths of Anders's mind, where she sees his true name and his parents watching him leave for the circle and his childhood fear of the dark and--

\--at the very bottom of the soul that belongs to the man that calls himself 'Anders', trying to remember that his people are hardy people, that they can persevere, Merrill touches down and sends up a beacon. Hawke's mastery of bloodmagic (really, of ANY magic) is raw and rough, the work of someone grieving. This is nothing like it. This is exquisite. It blossoms throughout his entire being, a great cloud of soft green leaves, and snuffs out the light of Hawke's sun-bright power in a shocking instant.

Anders is glad she told him to lean back against the wall because he collapses, now, boneless and coughing fitfully. He can't shake the feeling that they won't have much time before Hawke comes to take him back. He can remember everything Hawke did to him, remember the shame he feels at what he was made to do and worse, the guilt for what he let Fenris to do _him_ , failing to help a man who was clearly in need. He babbles uselessly, tries to get up multiple times before he realizes that _Merrill_ , of all people, keeps pushing him back into the wall and telling him something.

This time, he listens for it: "Anders _please_ , calm down. I need you to tell me what happened!"

He feels the world wheeling around them, but he is catching his breath after all, and Hawke has not yet burst in the door. He wonders if Hawke would send Fenris, first. Could they stop Fenris?

"It's Hawke," he gasps at last, a little hoarse yet from the-- attention-- his body had lavished on Hawke the night before. "After his mother died, he-- I don't know when, but he must have turned to blood magic." Saying it out loud seems to make it more real. He laughs at himself for never noticing, biting his lip, blinking away any attempts on part of his body to feel sorry for himself. "He was so afraid, Merrill, he thought we would leave him. _Maker_ , I don't want to hurt him. Even after--even after that."

She puts a hand on his shoulder, and squeezes, trying to share a reassuring smile with him, though he won't look up. He's sure he'll start crying in earnest if he does (she went and stirred up a lot of things that make him feel rather emotionally unstable, after all, in the process of saving him) and he doesn't want that.

"But Fenris--"

Merrill catches her breath in a sympathetic hiss, standing at once. " _Mythal,_ I didn't even think-- was there anyone else, or just the two of you?"

"The way he talked, I think it was only Fenris, until last night." Anders breathes heavily, trying to stay awake. Despite the adrenaline rush, his body is still exhausted, and that is catching up to him. "I don't know for how long. But--"

"But?" Merrill repeats urgently, helping him to lie out on the bed but pestering him until he answers her. "Everything you can tell me will help."

"When Hawke fell on deck yesterday," he mumbles sleepily, "I noticed Fenris, too. He can't-- he can't move without Hawke."

There is a rustle, but it's all fading now as his eyes insist on closing. He thinks _just for a few seconds_ , but knows better. He wishes he could have remembered to tell her what Fenris had said in those moments, but is simultaneously glad she didn't ask what Hawke had made him do. He's not sure if she knows, simply by having been in his mind.

His mind, which is now sore, but blessedly open. Justice is still too beaten by his own attempts to get out for anything but a weary grumble.

They both slip into fitful sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Barricaded in his cabin, Hawke is stroking Fenris's hair. Faintly, Fenris is aware of this gesture, small and soothing, a steady drip of affection that falls and falls and falls, eroded by sheer distance, until the drops strike him down in the tiny kingdom of what was once _his_ mind.

 _To keep you free, we must keep you here,_ breathe the droplets. And Hawke is right, of course, because even with Danarius dead there will always be greedy magisters, be people who want to take Fenris away. He lays another brick in the tomb of his mind, pushing the walls higher, thicker, voluntarily. Without these droplets, he would not have anything at all; no light, no sound. He craves them. He is so tired. Sometimes it is hours before the next falls, and he just leans against the black stone walls, tired of uselessly fighting.

 _I love you,_ breathe the droplets, echoes of Hawke's words.

He answers _I am yours_ , because there is no other answer, and lays another brick.

***

Merrill bravely approaches the cabin of the Champion of Kirkwall, even though she knows the man inside could kill her with a thought, even though she knows the man _bound_ to him is capable of silencing her forever. She knocks, and calls softly, keeping the tremor from her voice as best she can, "Hawke?" Let Anders sleep, and the others think that nothing is wrong. She is afraid of what they might do if they find out; she is more afraid that they will hurt Hawke than that Hawke will hurt her. "Please, let me talk to you. May I come in?"

The wind is still cold with yesterday's storm, no sign of the sun in the sky and clouds looming like angry blackbirds overhead. Varric has taken the helm, though he needs Isabela's help to steady it. Other shiphands are fully occupied with the troublesome tasks of checking every rope to be sure it is tied off properly, in case they are caught in gale-force winds again.

Hawke's voice, when it answers at last, seems perfectly normal. "All right, then. Come on in."

With one hand balled to her chest, the other on the door, Merrill steps forward, pulling a shield of stones around her body before she enters. Fenris's body stands tense before her, poised to strike, gleaming blue, and behind him Hawke is watching, crouched just a little, the fingers of his left hand crooked to control his lover.

She does not falter, and steps inside, closing the door behind herself.

"Hawke," Merrill says again, entreating him to reason. "Please, just speak with me. I don't want to fight you."

The answer is not words, but a tight shake of Hawke's head as he backs away from her, bringing his right hand up in a crude gesture meant to invoke the runes of control. Merrill crouches low, cradling power in her own hands. Hawke has already cut a line along his wrist to feed his spell, but when he brings it to bear, Merrill meets the magic with her own.

"You won't like what I have to do if you can't be civil," she warns him one last time, effortlessly deflecting Hawke's spell and severing its threads to him. The blood that powered the magic makes it stay, and she makes it hers: now the control spell weaves together as it was meant to do, in a deceptively beautiful shape somewhat like a dove.

"You'll take him from me," he whispers, bringing Fenris closer, laying a possessive hand on the elf's shoulders, making Fenris's face glower to match with a twitch of his fingers. "I can't let you."

That is all the answer Merrill needs, and not far from what she thought Hawke would say. She has been bracing herself for something unpleasant since her conversation with Anders had gotten her to thinking yesterday, and now the docile-seeming bird in her hands flips its wings, spreading them slowly, prepared to take flight. She thrusts up her palm, setting it free and sending it right back at him. "I'm sorry, then."

Raw but imperfect defenses slam up and the bird's true form is revealed, as it smears itself along the walls of power Hawke had made and consumes them, growing huge and dark with promise. It is bigger than the cabin. It swallows Hawke whole, and effortlessly binds him in place, pinning his arms to his side, stifling his magical power like a blanket over a flame, trapping him as he had sought to trap her.

Fenris goes limp, dropping to the floor with a painfully loud thud.

She will get to him. She wants to get to him. This is the only playing field on which she holds greater sway than Hawke, and her longer life and more extensive training will not hold him forever. As with Anders, she approaches the man they call their leader, steeling herself for the horrors she may well be about to see.

She places her fingers along his jaw, and peers into his eyes.

Looking into the face of a god might be something like looking into Hawke. Merrill had prepared herself for a great many things, but what she finds leaves her in breathless awe. Here is the source of that incredible well of power, and though the occasional tarnished spot of blood magic stains the outer halls of Hawke's mind, the rest are all rimed in glittering, solid gold.

Here, Merrill is the shape of a rabbit, dashing through the golden doors and into the recesses of a fortress. Hawke guards his mind jealously; doors close as she finds her way through, trying to keep her from going this way or that, trying to trap her and isolate her. Whenever she finds herself in a dead end, she pushes on the light binding spell she's ensnared him in, until the walls flinch and shift and a new passage opens up to let her find her way.

There is a room here just like Hawke's mother's room, and in it she finally finds him, huddled in a corner with his mother's wedding dress clutched to his chest, kneeling as if in prayer.

She calls to him, and when he looks up, his fearful expression is heartbreaking.

"No," he gasps, standing up, recoiling from her, even though she is only a little rabbit, and her soft call might as well have been a bird. "No, you'll take him away. Please-- please!" and he throws down his mother's bloodstained dress, he staggers forward, grabbing her by her shoulders, shaking her back into the shape of 'Merrill'. "Please, Merrill, don't-- don't take Fenris from me," he whispers, squeezing so tightly it would hurt, if this were her true body, if these were his real hands.

"Hawke," she says again, centering his attention on her, on her face, on her eyes. She does not trap him there, hoping he will be earnest with her, given an example of how to do it. So many times before it was him that lead her, even when she insisted on following a path she should have known was wrong; he is her first and truest friend. Seeing him like this-- knowing what has happened to make him lose his own conviction-- hurts her as these memories of hands cannot. "I need to know what you did to Fenris. Please, Hawke. He loves you."

He shakes his head minutely, glancing away nervously. This is not enough, this is not something he can prove. No matter the strength of love, if something were to happen-- and something might-- Fenris could die, leaving him forever as so many before.

Merrill lifts one hand, watching him solemnly as he watches her fingers with mistrust. Slowly, letting him see what she is doing before she does it, she cups his cheek, stroking his face as gently as a lover would, a mother would. When he begins to relax into her touch, she pulls him closer, kissing his cheek.

" _I_ love you." Surprise, but she does not relent: "We all do."

Shaking, he lets her go, bowing his head until his forehead is pressed to hers, quietly crying. She lets him hold her close, holds him back. She feels her form become Leandra Hawke, Fenris, Bethany, even though she never met the girl: and no matter the shape his thoughts give her, she holds him there, whispering reassuringly into his ear _We love you, Hawke_ until he has cried himself out and she has to support him, catching the weight of his weary mind in her arms.

She laughs softly, crouching down to set him on the floor of this strange golden fortress. She cannot remove the consequences of his actions, but she will not let him continue to destroy himself, destroy the things he loves. "Let him go, Hawke."

" _No,_ " he sobs, and the walls of his mind are cracking with the stress of his fear. She can hear the soft padding of Fen'harel, and thinks of shadows.

"If you don't, he may never come back to you."

"No," Hawke says again, lifting one hand. When she realizes what he is offering her, she grimly touches her fingers to his. For just an instant, Hawke lets her _see_ the raw, twisted corruption of his mind as it truly is; he trusts her, and lets her see the acid-eaten walls of this gleaming fortress, the jealousy and fear that he made into a noose. This is what has been slowly killing Fenris for the better part of a year.

He lets her see what else he did for only a moment, and then shame wells up and he can't bear to have her look at him any longer.

It's--

Horrible. But she reins in her urge to go to Fenris at once, and forces herself to understand the grief that drove Hawke to his own despair. There is no excuse, for what he's done-- she is glad he doesn't try to make one-- but Merrill promises him that that is _over_. She bends low and lays a second kiss on Hawke's cheek, forgiving him everything.

"Everyone deserves a second chance," she promises: and then the vines and tendrils of her magic, creeping silently through Hawke's fortress until they found the roots of the corruption and grew over them, flow like water. They snap through the flaws, shattering them, removing them, and bathe both Merrill and Hawke in a curious, waxy smell, like desert plants anticipating a late-summer storm.

The fortress floods with her, and where ever bloodmagic has touched, she soothes the walls shut, regrowing them in dull bronze-- the best she can do to approximate the pure strength of Hawke's native power. With a rush, she comes back up out of these depths, treated to an instant's glimpse of a perfect golden city so much like the black one of the Fade that, for an instant, she understands--

And then she is looking into Hawke's eyes again in his cabin, and slowly, slowly, she sets him down, releasing the binding spell one strand at a time to make certain it does not damage him. He seems surprised to discover the merit of such delicate handling, lifting his hands when she has freed him and looking at them in wonder.

"Later," she says breathlessly, "I'm going to have to teach you about how to cast properly."

He nods dumbly, not really paying attention to her: his eyes are on Fenris, anxious but no longer _panicking_. Though he is clearly itching to do it, Hawke does not go to Fenris's side-- he understands that he cannot _help_ the man as Merrill can.

She will never, ever tell him how frightened she was or how relieved she feels right now. It is enough for her that they have not just killed each other.

Now there is no time to waste, and she goes at once to Fenris's side, crouching down beside him to check his head. He's hit it hard on the way down, but still lies awake, staring without seeing.

Hearing her as she kneels beside him, he does not stir, save his lips: "Bring Hawke back," he murmurs dully. Merrill is already tired. It was no small feat to break Hawke's ties in Anders's mind, and while Hawke did most of the work for her in his own mind, there was still a good amount of power needed just to enter there.

She steels herself for the worst, knowing it will somehow be worse still than she can imagine, and takes Fenris's gauntleted hands into her own, feeling his palms worryingly cool against hers.

When she tries to enter, she is immediately knocked back, physically _lifted_ by the sheer force of denial and the blaze of his tattoos. She blinks in shock as the world seems to shift under her and her back hits the wall. Only after she has picked herself up does she realize that it was Fenris's own defenses that put her there.

Hawke helps her up, worry in his eyes as he wipes blood from the corner of her mouth, where she bit her lip on impact. "What happened?"

"He's -- not well," she temporizes. Even before, she had been worried about what she would find within Fenris's mind. Struggling with dread, she returns to his side, crouching down and, this time, closing his eyes, laying her palms flat over them to distact him as she begins to sink down into Fenris's outer thoughts.

They have all been condensed into a single thought, repeated endlessly, a cacophony of _Do as Master wishes_ that is so vivid, it nearly strips her skin.

Merrill grits her teeth, pressing her palms slowly to Fenris's temples, sliding them away from his eyes once she has seeped past that outer barrier. She feels the phyiscal force of his body's attempts to reject her crackle in the air, again, but this time they do not take form.

She takes a steadying breath, and presses on.

Dreary half-light is all that filters down through the high, black stone wall that surrounds Fenris's mind. There is no cool glow of magic here, and his thoughts are only thoughts-- stronger by the touch of lyrium, but weaker, too-- vague memories. Anders's mind was a lake, with terrifyingly frigid depths, Hawke's a fortress--

Fenris is just Fenris, sitting on the floor of a shack in Lowtown, reeking of sex and sweat, naked, waiting.

When Merrill opens the door, walking in on her own two feet, she feels his surprise and then the immediate acceptance. It's alarming, the way he crawls to her, the way he leans against her. She has seen-- moments of this, from Hawke. This is no structure, then, of Fenris's make; only the shadow of a memory.

"Fenris?" she says, very gently, crouching down to touch his shoulder. She's not certain he will respond positively to her touch or to her presence in general, and she has already been knocked out of his mind with enough force to make her think twice about trying to return. "Why are you doing this?"

It takes such a long time for him to answer. Her heart twists with sorrow and disgust for what's been done to him, what cannot be undone. When he does speak, his voice is old and tired. "This is what I am meant to do."

"This?" She gestures at the squalid home he has trapped himself in. "What do you mean by this?"

"I am meant," he says, diffidently, "to serve."

This is no puppet of Hawke's, though Hawke has certainly taken advantage of and used him as a puppet. This is Fenris's true self; these are his true thoughts. She can't stop herself from arguing, heartsick to see him reduced to such simplicity. "No; what about your freedom? It was everything to you. Don't you remember?"

When he looks up, she sees Fenris for the first time as Fenris sees himself. He is weak, and pale under the tan of his skin, and the lyrium marks so many other people think of as exotic or beautiful stand out in angry counterpoint to the rest of him, impossible to ignore, impossible to accept. His mouth is twisted with some small concession to his unhappiness, but his eyes do not gleam with emotion as they used to, and his voice is level, almost as calm as a Tranquil mage.

She can already feel herself slipping away, slowly beaten back by his mind's unwillingness to be saved. Much as she wants to fight back, to dig in her heels and stay until she sees this through, she is wary of damaging his mind any further. Fenris speaks in a soft, self-hypnotizing litany. "I am free because I remain Hawke's." This answer does not seem to complete his thought, for he continues, his attention wandering away from her. "I remain Hawke's because I let him into my mind; if I let Hawke into my mind, I can be free."

Biting her lip, Merrill squeezes Fenris's shoulder and slowly stands again. It is alarming, the way he nuzzles her knee in response and lays down on the ground before her, baring himself willingly to her scrutiny.

Soon, she will be back in the cabin, aware of reality and not this semi-fade plane of dreams and the mind. Desperate to make _some_ kind of contact, she asks haltingly,

"Don't you want me to help you, Fenris? I can. I want to; and Hawke-- won't hurt you, anymore. I promise."

Something briefly catches hold of Fenris's face, as his brow furrows and he lowers his head, looking pained, shocked. "--Hawke...is gone?"

The strange fear makes no sense to her, but it is alarming in its own right. She hastily corrects him. "No-- no. But I won't let him hurt you. He doesn't want to hurt you."

"Of course," Fenris agrees amiably. He does not say it aloud, but she can feel him telling himself placidly that Hawke does what is necessary, even if he doesn't want to, and it is all for the greater good. She would hit him, if it would accomplish anything. It seems unlikely he would stop if she did.

"Fenris, _please_." Merrill digs in a little, pushing open the door of the shack to invite Fenris out of it, to make that metaphorical step out into the rest of his mind and into control again. "You must remember wanting freedom. Don't you?"

The answer is like having a thunderclap explode directly over her head, or a boulder hit her square in the chest. She stumbles back, senses tingling as she realizes she is in the real world again, blown back by Fenris's own denial, by his latent magical talent. Setting her jaw, she stubbornly closes the distance between them, sinking back down into those tiers and tiers of layers of self-conditioning. She can feel Fenris fighting her, a little, this time but takes that as a good sign. At least he's not completely placid, anymore.

She pushes her way into a memory of Hawke's bedroom, intoxicatingly powerful with strong scents, sounds, and the horrific reality Fenris is reliving here, offering himself to a pack of Mabari hounds while Hawke just sits and watches. It nearly makes her sick, but whenever she tries to interrupt his mind threatens to blast her out again and she has to focus every thought she has on remaining. Fenris crawls to the memory of Hawke, licking his hard metal boots, letting Hawke crush his face to the floor with one heel. It is becoming less and less Hawke as time passes, but the image is still uncanny and awful. Fenris lies completely passive beneath Hawke's boot, willing to suffer anything, all the fight beaten from him.

But Merrill has had quite enough, and pushes the phantom image that is both Hawke and that magister, Danarius, shoving it-- him-- away from Fenris, standing over him protectively. The phantom dissipates when she touches it, falling back without complaint. Fenris stays where he was, waiting for her to take the place of his previous master.

She stomps her bare foot on the stone floor of this memory of Hawke's bedroom, trying to mask her own uncertainty. "This isn't _you_ , Fenris! You're named for the wolf, aren't you--? Why have you stopped fighting, then?" She kneels beside him, gently touching his face, meeting eyes that watch her without expectation or hope or anger or sorrow. There is simply nothing there, nothing but awful comprehension.

Fenris doesn't move, but he answers, his voice a haunted, haunting whisper: "I don't want to remember any of that. I- I'm tired of fighting."

And again, his mind pushes her away, but this time only a step or two, the sheer effort draining his reserves of energy. Back in the cabin, all she can taste is the acid aftertaste of her blood. She becomes slowly aware of the battle she has just fought, of how her hair stands on end and why her clothes press to her with slick wetness, why her fingernails are cracked at the tips.

The cabin has been laid to waste, contained only by Hawke's repentant efforts to keep the magical discharge from tearing Isabela's ship in twain. Fenris's body still lies on the floor, a puppet with strings cut, but he is otherwise unhurt. His blank expression does not change when she steps forward, pulling him up and wrapping him in her arms, sobbing into his shoulder. It doesn't help; it doesn't miraculously cure him, his body doesn't respond and encircle her with confused arms. But she cannot summon the power to dive back into his unwilling mind, and she is too exhausted emotionally to look on the horrors Hawke has done to their _friend_ anymore.

Hawke says nothing, nervously lingering behind her as she clutches Fenris to herself, weeping. When she has worn herself out, she lets him go, lying him back down out on the floor gently, cautious of letting his head smack the wood again. He still has a bump from when she severed Hawke's control of him, but that will heal in time.

A small wonder, that. It doesn't comfort her.

"Merrill?" Hawke asks, when she has been still for some minutes, sitting there cross-legged on the floor. "Are you-- Do you need anything?"

"No," she sighs, standing up with only a slight creak of protesting muscles. "Not just now."

"--you couldn't help him." Hawke's voice is hushed with guilt and apology. When she glances up at him, finally, she can see he is worrying at a grimy piece of cloth she recognizes for the veil Varric had described to her. She holds out a hand at once, saying nothing, her expression grim, and waits until he hands it over. "I-- what I did-- isn't--"

"No." She shakes her head, setting the cloth alight. She sees the way he watches it and, for once, she feels a flare of anger. "No, Hawke. I can't fix it."

He flinches.

"Fenris doesn't want me to," she adds, softly, letting the anger go. Hawke had held up admirably well under an inhuman amount of pressure until his mother's death; he had used Fenris to survive his own collapse and managed to come out on the other side still intact. If it weren't so awful, she almost might think that the elf had wanted to be that pillar of support when Hawke needed it. Perhaps he had, though surely not like this. "I-- I don't know if he'll ever want to heal."

No answer; they are both thinking about the sick betrayal of trust, about the pathetic shell that remains of what was once a thinking, feeling, intelligent man, lying there on the floor near them.

"For now, I- I want to check on Anders, and sleep," she says at last, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "I'll try again; Anders, too. But we have to tell Isabela and Varric." In case, she doesn't add, you have a relapse and try to hurt someone.

Hawke nods, not arguing and when she motions for him to come with her he follows, head bowed. It is not pleasant, standing on the prow of the ship in the whipping, cold winds, telling Varric and Isabela what she learned, helping Hawke to admit his fault. Varric is oddly sympathetic, which destroys any face Hawke might have been trying to save. He is still grieving for his mother, but he has had time and now that instability has been turned back on itself. She can see that he only wishes he hadn't done it; the same way, sometimes, she has seen Anders looking at his hands as if they don't belong to him. They all have their demons, in their own way.

For some minutes it seems as though Isabela might want to throw Hawke overboard, but she settles for demanding he clear out another cabin and move Fenris to it so the elf will not have to sleep with him. When they agree to do so, Merrill takes her cue to check again on Anders, Varric walking at her side.

"Careful, Daisy," he murmurs when she nearly stumbles over the threshold of Ander's doorway. "Just take it easy, okay? You look pretty bad."

She smiles wanly, and promises she will. “I just need rest, is all.”

“Is the elf sleeping?” For a moment, Merrill is puzzled by the question, being an elf herself. When she remembers Varric’s nickname for Fenris, she shakes her head slowly, wondering how best to explain. He follows up with another question before she can make up her mind. “Should I go sit with him?”

With a slow nod, Merrill steps further into Anders’s cabin. He is resting peacefully, his breath a soft rolling sound like an echo of the rise and fall of the sea. It’s pleasantly dim and warm in here. “If you can, that would—that would be good.”

Just like that, Varric is gone, with a whispered sentiment _take care of yourself, Daisy_ on the air. She tiptoes over to the bed, peering down at it for a moment before deciding she doesn’t want to have to crawl back up to the crow’s nest, or the cabin designated as her own, to sleep. Anders doesn't seem to mind-- though of course, he is already slumbering peacefully-- as she crawls into his narrow bed.

Tomorrow, is her silent promise. Tomorrow, she will try again.

She will not leave Fenris trapped in his own memories.


	5. Chapter 5

There's nowhere to sit, really, except the bed. Varric does so cautiously, taking one of Fenris's slack hands up in his own and testing the elf's wrist for a heartbeat. It's there. Fenris's eyes are open, though they don't focus, and his breathing is slow and steady. The whole of his person seems _resigned_. To what, Varric's not even sure he wants to know.

Isabela will want to make decisions about future arrangements soon, and he knows that. Things can't carry on as they were, not with this-- glaring problem boring into their side. It's a choice, except it isn't a choice at all, really. If they keep Hawke on, Isabela will kick them all off the ship, with the exception of Fenris. If they keep Fenris, that's the end for Hawke. Poor bastard might as well be made tranquil. It's an easy solution, abandon the man that betrayed them, except for the part where it makes Varric's heart twist, to think of admitting the reality of this horror they've found. Hawke, turning Fenris into a thrall. The ex-slave who was terrified of mages trying to destroy who he was.

Rightly so.

Setting the hand back at Fenris's side, Varric grips his knees, leaning over them, and thinks for a while. He has always made a policy of staying out of the decision making process unless it's absolutely necessary, butting in with helpful tidbits of information when and where he can. Choosing between Hawke and Isabela doesn't appeal. The whole thing stinks. He keeps hoping Fenris will wake up and tell them it was all a demon, except Merrill's already proved that's not the case. No easy fix. No simple solution. Mistakes were made, and Kirkwall being in flames behind them is suddenly the least of Varric's problem. After all, how can you paint someone a hero when he's broken the person he loves?

"I don't know what to say," he mutters at last, trying to center himself by talking. Voicing his thoughts might not benefit Fenris, but at least it gives him focus, purpose. "I guess there's nothing really _to_ say, huh? Except I'm sorry. Andraste's tits, I'm sorry, elf. If I'd known--"

What would he have done? How long ago would have been early enough?

"Fuck." He runs a gloved hand through his hair, rubs at the bridge of his nose, and grinds a knuckle into his eye. "I wish he hadn't done it."

Alarmingly, Fenris's hand twitches at that. Doesn't move, doesn't grab him by the wrist, but it twitches. Fenris's eyes, still not focus, track on something Varric can't see. His lips part, throat bobs. The room feels close and tight, more like a coffin than a cabin, and Varric is staring at Fenris desperately, willing him to speak.

No words: but a whimper. The sound is so faint and utterly alone it makes Varric feel uneasy. This isn't the first time he's seen someone-- devastated, decimated, like this. But he's fairly certain he couldn't take another like the last time. Varric Tethras is not one to dwell on sorrow and if the elf says _please, kill me_ it would destroy something precious that Varric has clung to like the crossbow he wears on his back.

"I'd ask you to tell me about it but I don't think I wanna know. Hell, I'm afraid to know. You seem like the sort of person who might kill a guy just for knowing your dark past." No response, but Varric scoots a little farther away just in case so it'll take effort if Fenris wants to make an effort to evict Varric's heart from his chest. "Alternatively, I could ramble about myself, but I don't have anything I want to air out, in particular."

Time passes, and sometimes he tries again, but never does he quite hit on whatever it was that made Fenris react again. Maybe there was no reaction, maybe it's all in Varric's head. Spending hours rambling to, essentially, oneself tends to augment one's perception of reality, after all. By the time he's gotten hoarse with relating old wives' tales from Darktown, he could almost believe that the creak of the door opening is just him hoping for a reprieve. Then Anders steps in, a shadow of himself, and Varric hops off of the bed, eyeing the mage with no small amount of concern.

"You look like shit."

"Thanks." The wan smile on the mage's face doesn't suit him any more than the bags under his eyes and the stubble. "Any luck?"

With a shrug, Varric steps aside, letting Anders kneel by Fenris's side, testing his unresponsive body with the faint blue glow of magic. "He's alive, I guess. If you can call that living."

No answer, save the shaking of Anders's shoulders. Varric gets the distinct impression the mage woke up and came straight here, as soon as he could. He thinks about reaching out to pat the poor bastard gently, but before he can suit that to action, Anders seems to get a hold of himself. "I should have let Hawke die."

And Fenris breathes one word, his brows knitting tight in some remembered emotion, choked in supplication. " _No._ "

Startled, they both move closer, Anders looming over the man, Varric trying to catch sight of those unresponsive eyes. Nothing, nothing, but he _is_ frowning, and his breath has quickened. When Anders tries to touch his face, he shies away. Varric's not sure if he sees hope in this, or just a sick, depressing self-destruction, but they've had enough shit since the year began, and he can't help hoping for a miracle. Anders whispers, "Fenris? Can you hear us?"

The frown deepens, and Fenris closes his eyes as if to shut them out, gritting his teeth. "Don't--" each word is labored, a lifetime of effort, "--kill--" and they can feel his exhaustion, his willingness to surrender if it means he can finally rest: "--Hawke."

Anders bites his lip against something it seems he would rather not say while Varric is standing right there, and Varric tries to reassure. "We're not going to kill him, elf. But we can't let him keep doing this to you, either."

Again: "No."

"Don't be unreasonable." Varric grins, even if neither Fenris nor Anders is looking at him. "It's hurting him, too, you know."

Fenris's eyes open, and they are almost focused, but not in a good way. He picks up Anders's hand, and brings it to his face, pressing unresponsive fingers to his cheek, nuzzling them. Before the mage can pull back, Fenris pulls harder, dragging the mage on top of him, sucking one of Anders's fingers into his mouth. Making a strangled sound of complaint, Anders tries feebly to pull away, succeeding only in trailing Fenris's saliva over his chin. Gazing steadfastly at Varric, Fenris murmurs without emotion, "I am Hawke's," and begins to pull Anders closer, murmuring something about Anders _too_.

"Let go!" Struggling in earnest, Anders still isn't as strong as Fenris, and Varric has to help the mage pry himself free. They both come away with cuts from Fenris's gauntlets, but he doesn't move from the cot when they pull back, simply laying there, waiting for them. " _Maker's breath_ , Fenris, I didn't want that and I'm _sorry_ ," Anders is gasping.

What drives them out of the cabin is the elf's slow laughter, the helpless acceptance, the fact that he starts stripping himself of his armor, idly, knowing they are watching. His voice follows, chilling them both far deeper than the icy winds do: "Why not? It's free."

***

"I don't see why I shouldn't kill you." Isabela has, for safety's sake, hogtied Hawke and arranged him such that any attempt to free himself will press his throat into a dagger with his full weight, killing him instantly. The trouble is, both of them seem almost to want him dead. She's not sure if that'd be letting him have the easy way out. Worse, she knows that when the rage settles, when it all clears away, she'll just feel bitterly betrayed and sorry for him. Not that they all haven't betrayed him in their ways; Anders was never particularly predictable, what with the mage girl 'Vengeance' had killed, and the Chantry, now; Isabela herself has a poor track record, and even Merrill had bullheadedly insisted on trying to repair the Eluvian, forcing Hawke and her Keeper into a fight that had left Merrill shell-shocked and Hawke clearly feeling slightly less than whole. Marethari had been a guiding force for him, knowledgeable in certain things he could not learn from those who'd come before in his life. In a way, it had always seemed that Hawke felt strongly for all the people around him.

But then, there's Fenris. Fenris left, yes. When she thinks about it that way, she can understand that there was betrayal in the fact that she and the elf slept together so soon after he'd sworn he could not be with Hawke. There was a cruelty there that she feels frustrated neither man bothered to tell her about. She's insulted to think that Fenris had chosen to use her when he knew it would hurt someone else. More, she's furious that Hawke would think a lover's quarrel a worthy excuse to turn to _blood magic_ and enslave someone's mind.

"You should." And Hawke, who is breathing raggedly with the pressure on his ribs, is not making her life easier. "I went too far." While the others seem to see vulnerability in Hawke, Isabela only sees a weary relief. Perhaps he's been wondering when they would find out all this time.

"Hard to feel like it'd be smart when it's what you want," she mutters darkly.

The door to the cabin interrupts them before she can go on, and Varric and Anders both look like they've seen a bloody ghost when they stumble in. That fades quickly for Varric, as he storms in, stabbing one stubby finger at Hawke's cheek. The mage flinches, but otherwise seems unconcerned about his situation. Anders is shuddering, holding himself tightly. "What the _fuck_ did you do to him?"

Isabela has _never_ heard Varric shout.

It's kind of incredible. You wouldn't think a dwarf could boom, but he does. His voice is a tremendous weapon. He could command armies with that voice. He could behead kings. "Why not just give him to Danarius tied up in a ribbon? Of all the depraved, _base_ things you could do-- did you fuck him while you ripped his brains into shreds? _Fuck!_ You probably let half of Lowtown at him, the way he's acting!"

"I-" Hawke meets Varric's eyes, not calmly, but not making excuses. "I destroyed him. It was wrong. You should kill me."

"No, you _ungrateful bastard_ , I'm not going to kill you just so you can get out of making this up to him! I--"

"If you kill me," terrible, logical, and very, very quiet, "that will solve this problem."

" _Flames take you, no!_ " Varric punches him, hard, in the face, and Hawke's whole body is thrown by the force of it, onto his shoulder and his hip and away from the dagger, away from the easy answer. There's a thin scab on his throat from where he first tried to push down when Isabela was still getting him situated. Hawke's head rolls, but he slowly seems to come back into full awareness; Varric hits him again, and again until the Champion of Kirkwall is drooling blood and his right eye is swollen shut, the left staring unfocused at the floor by Anders's feet. She watches, paralyzed, as Varric grabs his chin, pulling him up, looking at him until, very reluctantly, his eye acknowledges the vague shape before it and recognition twists his split lips. "Everyone deserves a second chance," Varric whispers, desperately, hoarsely, and he smooths the blood off of Hawke's chin. "Even you, you sodding bastard. Especially you. _Fuck._ Next you're gonna ask me to make you Tranquil."

The burned out husk of the cabin Hawke and Fenris previously shared is choking thick with the smell of burnt wood, but only Hawke is coughing, now. "That would work," he wheezes.

Varric breaks his nose. "Shut up. If you were really sorry you'd have stopped ages ago."

Making a vague gurgling sound that eventually turns into a piteous laugh, Hawke shuts his eye, saying nothing more. Varric motions for Anders to step forward, growling icily, "Heal him." While she can't help wondering what it was she missed, Isabela isn't exactly sure she's upset. She'd wanted to see Hawke suffer for what he'd done, hadn't she?

But- not like this. As Anders kneels by Hawke's side, cleaning up the damage to his nose, taking away the swelling by his eye, she retrieves her dagger, looking at Varric speculatively. He's never been comfortable with the idea of leading their friends about by the nose, and Anders can talk big, but he doesn't do well as a leader either. Aveline, of course, is still back in Kirkwall. And while she respects Merrill and what Merrill's done for them today, she'd rather not foist her burden off on anyone. "I need to make a decision about this soon. What would you two like to do?"

"Merrill can't try to help Fenris again until tomorrow," Anders offers softly, shaking the glow from his fingertips. "And I don't know what can be done, really."

"I meant with Hawke."

Licking his lips, Hawke slumps into the floor, his cheek pressed hard against it. "I don't--" he hesitates, seeing their eyes all on him, and seems to shrink into the floor. His voice quavers warningly, the facade of calm acceptance in danger of falling away. "I don't mind if you kill me. Or send me away, or-- or make me Tranquil."

"None of that's going to solve the mess you made, either," Varric grouses.

"Maybe not, but if I'm not here, maybe Fenris will get better." His voice gets very small. "I'd like him to get better."

It really is cosmically unjust, monumentally unfair, she thinks, that he can still look and sound like the same man they've known all these years, still ache, still sound lonely and loving and ordinary. If only all people who were capable of visiting such horror on their friends were summarily transformed into abominations, made into easy targets where the victims could focus their hate, their anger and visit on them blameless deaths. Unbidden, Anders's words come back to her, and it only makes her heart heavier. _It doesn't take a demon to be able to kill people._

You don't have to be a mage to hurt people. They're all quite good at hurting people, physically and emotionally. Most of them do so without even thinking about the consequences anymore.

She takes a deep breath, and decides now is, in fact, too soon. "I want Merrill's opinion. And if possible, I want Fenris's." She turns to Anders and Varric. "You say he's awake?" Their expressions tell her she doesn't want to know. "Fine, forget I asked. Just-- don't let him kill himself, and don't let him go until Merrill's awake. We'll trade watches. You first, Varric, and Anders, you've got the afternoon. I'll take night watch."

Time feels like it finally starts moving again once she's made this decision; they nod, slowly, and Anders excuses himself. She takes her leave as well, and sees Anders's thin form clambering high up to the crow's nest while she makes herself useful about the ship. The crew-- the crew proper-- can tell when their Captain's of a mean temper, so they keep scarce and don't talk with her much, but by the time the sun's set and it's her turn to watch Hawke, she finally has some sense of control over her hurt, her anger. Maybe it's ill-advised, but she goes to Fenris, first, instead of Hawke.

He's lying naked in his cot, and tries to throw himself upon her, crawling to her, nuzzling her knees like a dog before she's quite taken it all in. She orders him to get dressed, commands him to come along with her-- and in those moments, knows she can't be trusted with him. There's an eerie eagerness to him, a happiness to obey, that she'll never be able to cure. Without orders, he seems content to fall back on debasing himself as a sex slave, but with orders he's almost like himself again. That scares her. That shakes her.

So she brings him to Hawke, even if it might be ill-advised, and tells him to sit down on a stool that she had brought in for whoever was keeping watch, even as Anders gives her a worried look on his way out.

Hawke is sleeping, for the first hour or so. She takes the time to check Fenris for bruises, gently probe near the lump on his head from falling to be sure he didn't hit very hard. With commands, he holds still, not trying to kiss and nuzzle her hands when she is near him, but he seems almost hurt when, finally annoyed with his clinging, she snaps at him to sit still and wait. He looks-- hurt. Sad.

"Why are you so interested in me, anyway?" She mutters, rubbing at her wrist self-consciously, glowering at Hawke's unconscious body. Someone had the foresight to cut the ropes and re-tie him in a way that wouldn't collapse his ribs eventually, probably Varric. Instead of gasping for breath, his wrists are bound to his ankles, forcing him to curl into a ball, with his knees tied together. "Shouldn't you be after Hawke?"

The answer is slow in coming. She almost thinks that her question might've been too open. And then, Fenris speaks, very softly: "I am lonely. If I am not to be Hawke's, I would be yours, instead."

"You sure know how to make a girl feel special," she sighs, though she doesn't feel the venom she might normally imbue that response with. "You're lonely, eh? Everyone on this ship is lonely. Anders is a lovelorn fool, lucky you, eh? And the kitten's never going to be with her people again, much as she wants it. _I_ don't mind a little solitude now and then, but-- sod it all, Fenris, don't you want _anything_ for yourself anymore?"

He stares at her without seeming to comprehend, and drops his gaze to Hawke, who is still sleeping. "...Merrill was distressed." The memory seems vague, or difficult; his face twists with it. "Because I do not."

Before the night is over, Hawke does awaken, and sees Fenris and looks at her in alarm. He doesn't speak, but he seems concerned his presence will only worsen things. When Fenris notices, he opens his mouth as if to say something, closes it. Silence.

Days begin to pass without change. She's never hated being out on the sea more; Merrill rises each morning, works with Fenris's mind until close to midday, retreats up to the crow's nest. Varric busies himself talking to the crew and if he talks to Hawke when he's keeping watch on the man, they both hold their peace about it. Anders refuses any further watches with Hawke and tries, with as little success as Merrill, to help Fenris recover. It's as though he doesn't want to. Days stretch into weeks, and then one morning there is land in sight, and Isabela has to make a decision.

After the first few days, they'd stopped keeping Hawke tied. Now he simply stays in his cabin, does exercise to keep from wasting away, eats half-rations in self-flagellation, and waits. When she comes in for her night shift, he is staring uneasily at Fenris, who is blocking her way in, standing just inside the door, rigid, furious.

 _Furious._

"Fenris--?"

"I want to hunt him," he says, sharply, the old undying hate bubbling in the depths of his voice. She can imagine mountains erupting with that kind of violence. It's the sort that says Hawke would be dead even if he didn't want to. "Will you let me?"

Hawke says nothing; though he has an expression that says he will not argue. It's that hang-dog look that's made all this so much harder for Isabela. Even if it was a crime of passion, it's still a _crime_ , and much as it chafes her knickers to agree with Aveline (luckily unaware of it all, back in Kirkwall) she does agree that Hawke must be kept in check somehow. What Fenris is proposing, though-- "Depends on the terms," she says, more lightly than she feels. "I'm not really certain that's the wisest choice."

"It is the simplest," Fenris murmurs, sounding tired and resigned again. "Take his blood, in a phylactery; let him run. Sail with me for another month, and let me free as well. And I will hunt him."

"How does that solve my problem?" Isabela finally steps past Fenris, moving to Hawke, catching his gaze and holding it. "That leaves me with two friends gone. One or both dead, and never to be seen again, in any case." Shaking her head, she sets her arms akimbo, lifting her chin and letting one eyebrow rise as she turns back to Fenris. "You're not fixed yet, either."

Fenris _laughs_. "Nor will I be. The abomination and the blood mages cannot undo my memory, or if they plan to, they have yet failed in their efforts. There is no other solution. Let me hunt him. I only ask a little thing; I will never trouble you or anyone when I have done it."

She can see where this will go. Merrill will stay with Hawke, for even if she admits defeat with Fenris, Hawke's power cannot be left unchecked and she has much to teach him. Anders-- might go with them, might remain. He has spent more and more time hiding in the crow's nest, talking to no one but Merrill, staring wistfully when he is back on deck at the sky and sea. Varric has already expressed a desire to return to Kirkwall, the next time they have the opportunity to port so he can switch ships. His disillusionment has left him bitter and sad at the memory of what once was a true friend. She can't blame him.

Instead of answering Fenris, she lets her attention return to Hawke. "Will you actually run at all, or are you going to embarrass him by sulking around, hoping he'll kill you?"

Looking between them both, Hawke shakes his head. "No, I wouldn't run." His smile is thin. "I'm tired of running in fear of something all the time. Kill me here; better you than the templars." Isabela punches his shoulder lightly. "I mean it."

"You _owe_ Fenris at least one thing he actually wants," she growls, and that silences his protests of surrender. "So we're going to give it to him."

And that's that: Hawke nods, and Fenris leaves the cabin.

Two days later, Hawke and Merrill depart, Anders deciding at the last minute to join them. They keep going, deaf to Fenris's promise not to show them mercy if they are still with Hawke when Fenris finds him. Varric leaves, and Isabela has Fenris all to herself.

In a way.

When they next make port, he finds her with the port authorities as they're confirming their cargo, and kisses her cheek.

"What was that for?" She tries not to let her heart feel heavy. She has never been big on goodbyes, and this is rather the shittiest one it's ever been her displeasure to receive.

"For my freedom," he answers, some strange light in his eye. And then, more darkly, as he lifts Hawke's phylactery, "For his penance."

And just like that, Fenris is gone, a shadow of death backlit by the runic marks along his body.

***

"When at last Fen'harel found his shadow, it was not as he had expected to find it," Merrill murmurs, holding Anders's too-warm hand as he grumbles about fevers, and really he's just fine, and food-poisoning. "For the shadow had become a whole man, and the man had become a wolf, and the wolf had teeth that could pierce through the sky."

"Is there a _point_ to this?" he grouses, fighting down nausea. He wants to lay and let his head pound and complain. It's hard to talk. He hates being ill, and he really hates rotten turnips for tasting disgusting and then making him sick. A double insult, to be sure. "You can tell me inane Dalish elf stories some other time, Merrill, I'm _really_ not up for it just now."

Still she speaks, and he can see something wrong about the set of her body, her posture. She's acting almost-- possessed? "Fen'harel cried with great joy, and rushed through the evening grasses to his shadow's side, saying 'My friend! My only friend! I had never thought you to return!' but the shadow did not speak. He sank his teeth into Fen'harel and the Dread Wolf howled; and he sucked the life out of the wounds, and where-ever he touched to Fen'harel's body, he stuck again."

"Merrill?" His heart is thundering in his chest. Justice, who has never really recovered from what Hawke did to them, stirs wearily, noting some strange pitch of magic that Anders cannot hear. _Visions._

"By the time the shadow had laid itself fully upon Fen'harel, they were both dying, and he spoke. 'Now I have cut you, as you cut me. We are one and the same again. If you can survive what was wrought, then we will walk the world together, my friend. But if you die, I will not mourn you.'"

The clearing in which they'd been making camp is completely still, save the long, hot breath of a summer wind through high grasses, his hair. Anders stifles a groan of frustration at the queasy feeling in his gut, and grabs Merrill's shoulders, shaking her. "Quit doing that and tell me what you're on about."

She sags, and looks at him in puzzlement. "Are you about to throw up? Would you like a bowl or- or maybe just someplace clean? Hawke should be back from the brook soon." Great green eyes narrow in concern, and she pats his hands with hers, gently prying him off. When she gets him to lie down again, he realizes his heart is pounding with adrenaline. It hadn't occurred to him that Hawke has separated from their group, but she's right. In the throes of a particularly nasty stomach cramp he'd begged for water. Hawke, ever eager to please and grateful for their continued companionship, had quickly run off to fetch some.

That had been fifteen minutes ago, give or take.

Anders tries not to imagine what the footsteps approaching their camp might be. Are there two sets, or just the one? And whose are they? He closes his eyes, and hopes for the best. Maker preserve them, that's all he's ever hoped for, even if it so rarely comes true.

"Oh, is it worse?" Merrill asks gently, almost motherly in her friendly affection. "Don't worry. I'm sure he'll bring back plenty of water."

Taking her hand, he hopes that she's right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that readers like the ending. I intentionally left it vague enough that it could go either way. While I wanted to see this through to its realistic conclusion, it's made me sad to write it, so I couldn't quite go the full route.


End file.
